Kelly was being a bitch about that cut in the corner and Loew basically had to push him back out into the ring.

I hate Martinez's fighting style. Throw two punches and make the guy chase you for 15 seconds. But, it was effective against Kelly. Kelly's simply not an athletic fighter. He's very slow of foot and has relied on being more powerful than the other middleweights. Martinez won that round with the cut and then being aggressive from the 10th on. Kelly gave up hope when he started getting blood in that right eye.

Not an impressive display from Kelly. I think he has to invoke the rematch clause that was mentioned during the fight and find ways to improve his agility and give it another go.

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skatingtripods wrote:Kelly was being a bitch about that cut in the corner and Loew basically had to push him back out into the ring.

I hate Martinez's fighting style. Throw two punches and make the guy chase you for 15 seconds. But, it was effective against Kelly. Kelly's simply not an athletic fighter. He's very slow of foot and has relied on being more powerful than the other middleweights. Martinez won that round with the cut and then being aggressive from the 10th on. Kelly gave up hope when he started getting blood in that right eye.

Not an impressive display from Kelly. I think he has to invoke the rematch clause that was mentioned during the fight and find ways to improve his agility and give it another go.

Not a fan of Martinez's style either, but really, that's all you can do when you walk in the ring 12 lbs lighter than your foe. Martinez has gotten robbed of decisions in all of his other big fights, and needed to do what he had to to win the fight.

It was an incredibly intelligent fight. The type of thing that separates boxing from MMA IMO.

Hard to fault Martinez. He's a fine fighter. Much more effective and legitimate at 154 ... which makes tonights performance even more impressive.

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skatingtripods wrote:Kelly was being a bitch about that cut in the corner and Loew basically had to push him back out into the ring.

I hate Martinez's fighting style. Throw two punches and make the guy chase you for 15 seconds. But, it was effective against Kelly. Kelly's simply not an athletic fighter. He's very slow of foot and has relied on being more powerful than the other middleweights. Martinez won that round with the cut and then being aggressive from the 10th on. Kelly gave up hope when he started getting blood in that right eye.

Not an impressive display from Kelly. I think he has to invoke the rematch clause that was mentioned during the fight and find ways to improve his agility and give it another go.

Dude better start chasing greased chickens or something because anyone who can move is an obstacle Pavlik can't overcome right now. Now you have to start wondering about his motivationand will because ain't nobody dumb enough to stand in front of him and trade unless that's all they got.

And if that's all they got they ain't gonna be waiting at the top of the division.

skatingtripods wrote:Kelly was being a bitch about that cut in the corner and Loew basically had to push him back out into the ring.

I hate Martinez's fighting style. Throw two punches and make the guy chase you for 15 seconds. But, it was effective against Kelly. Kelly's simply not an athletic fighter. He's very slow of foot and has relied on being more powerful than the other middleweights. Martinez won that round with the cut and then being aggressive from the 10th on. Kelly gave up hope when he started getting blood in that right eye.

Not an impressive display from Kelly. I think he has to invoke the rematch clause that was mentioned during the fight and find ways to improve his agility and give it another go.

Dude better start chasing greased chickens or something because anyone who can move is an obstacle Pavlik can't overcome right now. Now you have to start wondering about his motivationand will because ain't nobody dumb enough to stand in front of him and trade unless that's all they got.

And if that's all they got they ain't gonna be waiting at the top of the division.

Time to re-dedicate or re-tire.

Totally agree. Kelly wasnt aggressive enough tonight and when the going got tough, he just didnt man up. I am not a fan of Martinez's style but he won that fight. Its almost as if the Hopkins fight is still in Pavlik's head and when things went south he just didnt have the mental toughness to pull it out.

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It's tough to say. All depends on how much you think the cuts were affecting Kelly. He had taken this fight over before Sergio opened up the right eye ... and then opened the left back up 30 seconds later.

Kelly didn't look tired. I don't believe him to be a guy with no heart that gives in during the last 4 rounds of a fight he was winning after 8.

But he got his ass beat the last 4 rounds. Like he said post fight, Sergio was VERY smart down the stretch. Kelly'd block the first left, but when he doubled it right up, he couldn't see the second left. Sergio saw that and just lather, rinse, repeated down the stretch to a win.

Now that all said, Kelly's inability to consistently deal with Sergio's quickness is what caused the cuts in the first place, so you can't say Kelly would easily win a rematch, as the same thing could happen.

But I think it was lack of vision, not lack of heart that ended up being the difference down the stretch in this one tonight.

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Might be time to take a hard look at getting rid of Loew. I don't think he can go any further with this guy, no offense but no belt holder in any other weight class or the elite champions of the past have had a trainer who was a cement layer by day and a trainer by night. Kelly should shell out the loot and get a top flight guy that can bring him back to where he needs to be, if anyone can do that at this point. I think sometimes there's a fine line between loyalty and stupidity/stubborness.

The problem, though, is that even in the rounds that Pavlik did win, he didn't hurt Martinez at all. Martinez hurt Pavlik several times. Sure, Pavlik, in rounds 5-9 dictated the pace of the fight and started to negate Martinez's speed and agility advantage, but he still never really hurt him. He won those rounds because he forced Martinez to adjust to something he didn't want to do.

But, it's not like Pavlik won those rounds by hurting him. The knockdown wasn't even a good shot. It was a glancing shot where Martinez was off-balance.

I know Martinez was a tough fight for Pavlik. Like McPeek said, anybody who can move gives Pavlik trouble. Martinez is also a very unorthodox fighter. But Pavlik was the only one who got hurt in that fight. You can say what you want about how Pavlik might have won the fight had he not got cut again, but Martinez isn't the guy you would expect to hurt Pavlik.

He hasn't been the same fighter since Hopkins took him down a few pegs. It really seems like he has confidence issues. It's a total lack of confidence in his punching ability. Pavlik won those middle rounds using the left jab. Why not throw a left hook or a cross? Throw an uppercut or two. Kelly simply had no confidence in his ability to hit Martinez, so he developed a defeatist attitude. That cut made it worse.

You couldn't really hear what Kelly was saying, but like I said, Loew told him in so many words "get your ass back out there". I don't think the pre-Hopkins Pavlik would have acted the way he did, even with that cut pouring blood.

And also, yes Rich, there should be a new cut man opening for Pavlik. That guy was horrible.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe